The Tampa Bay Buccaneers just keep knocking off their offseason priorities one by one before the official start of the league season on March 17th.
The most recent member of the Super Bowl-winning 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team to re-up with the franchise is exuberant future Hall of Fame tight end Rob Gronkowski, who will be returning to the team on a one-year, $10 million deal, his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday.
Gronkowski is the latest in a long line of guys who have signed on to run it back for a chance at another trip to the NFL’s mountaintop: legendary quarterback Tom Brady has already restructured his contract to free up cap space, LaVonte David re-signed in a similar fashion, the franchise tag has been applied to Chris Godwin, and pass-rusher Shaquil Barrett got his big payday earlier on Monday.
That’s a great haul for the Bucs brass, but they’ve still got a ways to go with important contributors such as wideout Antonio Brown, running back Leonard Fournette, kicker Ryan Succop, and defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh still on track to hit free agency on Wednesday.
Suh and the team have already begun negotiations, and conversations between Tampa Bay and the rest of that group are expected shortly, according to ESPN’s Diana Russini.
Whether or not they can finish off that final quartet of potential free agents with four new contracts, the Bucs are already in a great position to convert on sky-high +800 early odds to win the Super Bowl next season.
Gronk had retired from football in 2019, but after his rights were traded along with a seventh-round pick by the New England Patriots to the Bucs for a fourth-rounder last summer he started working back to game shape.
He was rusty at first, but he came on strong down the stretch, right when you’d expect a veteran like that to be playing his best ball: he scored two touchdowns in the Super Bowl win, thereby helping himself and Brady eclipse the Joe Montana-Jerry Rice connection as the highest scoring QB-receiver duo in Super Bowl history.
The Williamsville, New York native has played a decade in the NFL and amassed five Pro Bowls, four First-Team All-Pro selections, and four Super Bowl titles. Gronk has piled up 556 receptions, 8,484 receiving yards, and 86 receiving touchdowns (third all-time among tight ends) across 131 regular season games.
